Strava Heatmaps with the slide tool used to be a huge help for me - and many other mappers, I suppose - to quickly and accurately trace new tracks and roads. Unfortunately Strava now changed the access policy: Since March 2018 only logged-in members can see the high-res heatmap. This is not sufficient for mapping and the slide tool.

Since Strava highly profits of OSM - do you guys think it makes sense to get in touch with them and propose for example, that people with OSM login still can access high-res heatmaps with the slide tool?

The new tiles work anywhere if you get them from the /tiles-auth/ directory on Strava's server (instead of /tiles/) and then append "Key-Pair-Id", "Signature", and "Policy" parameters that correspond to a valid OAuth token. I was able to get the necessary values from one of the cookies stored in my regular Web browser after having visited Strava's heatmap page.

It's an awkward workaround that takes a lot of copying and pasting (and which probably must be RE-done when the cookie expires), but in a pinch it might work for individuals who just want to get up and running in JOSM.

Hello Adam, can you please provide an example of URL? I've tryed something like this tms[3,11]:https://heatmap-external-{switch:a,b,c}.strava.com/tiles-auth/both/bluered/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png?Key-Pair-Id=MYVALUE&Signature=MYVALUE&Policy=MYVALUE where MYVALUE are the respective cookies value, but the zoom level is the same as before.

The cookies can be found once logged in at www.strava.com under strava.com
CloudFront-Key-Pair-Id, CloudFront-Policy and CloudFront-Signature

Prepare a TMS URL like this one with your cookie values instead of ......:
tms[3,15]:https://heatmap-external-{switch:a,b,c}.strava.com/tiles-auth/all/bluered/{zoom}/{x}/{y}.png?Key-Pair-Id=.....&Policy=.....&Signature=.....

Indeed Strava's GPS heatmap is very helpful for tracing hidden ways in natural elements (forests, woods, scrubs...). So, yeah i think that we should definitely remind Strava that they highly benefit of OSM and that it's still a good way for their costumers to know what kind of terrain it's expected on the GPS trace!

About their slide add-on in the optional iD editor, it's not convenient for plotting ways! You cannot create serious accurate ways according reality. I've tested it and seen what users do:
- not accurate and misleading
- doesn't take into account GPS offsets due to lack of signal, cliffs (will influence all GPS)...
- cross-ways whether in Y for or X or more are not respected
- adds useless nodes on straight lines/ways and overloads OSM with useless data and even removes precision on ways that are not straight...
- encourages people to plot ways without proper survey

Since the high resolution heatmap is only available for Strava users, how about we login with a Strava account but in the editor? Not only it's an opportunity for them to get new costumer accounts but as already said, they highly benefit of OSM and it will help their costumers have a more detailed map. They should really consider the seriousness of our work. I noticed that they even have an error report form to send to Mapbox. So i doubt they would be against this. All this said, their heatmap does not have to be considered as a precise tool but rather a help to enhance hidden ways and for comparison.

There is no way you can duplicated the data collected by Strava for anything related to trails - cycling, running, hiking, country skiing. Everybody with Garmin and other devices upload to Strava. That is where the good data is and that's the one we need to build OSM. If somebody can fix the ID Slide integration it would be so great. It was a truly useful tool.

More seriously, while the Strava data's useful it isn't without its issues. In my bit of central England Strava's running data contains lots of "short cuts" where people have jumped a low wall or run through a broken gate across a field. It's no indication that there's actually a path anywhere - you have to cross-check with other sources that the data's legit and not just someone running across a field because they can. That said, if you can externally verify the data then the extra points in Strava's point cloud do give you more accuracy.

I definitely find "Tractor"s statement questionable.
We'd be hard at work, however, reaching the coverage of the Strava Global Heatmap, using OSM tracker (or gps uploads created in a variety of other ways).
That said, Strava users in my experience often travel specific routes, leading some paths to stand out and others (often more important tracks) go completely unnoticed by editors relying solely on Strava.
If we want the network of tracks in a given forest to be complete we still need to pull out our gps devices.